The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction JanuaryFebruary 2013 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 124) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2012-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

We stayed in that holding pattern until one Saturday, several weeks after The Day It All Began, when the three of us headed out the door into a bright late fall afternoon. Most of the leaves, including Charlie's, had come down and were piled along the sidewalks, waiting to be collected. The combination of deep blue sky, crisp air, hard sunshine, and the smell of autumn leaves did its usual invigorating thing, and Charlie chattered happily as we walked up her short, quiet side street, hauling Raven behind us; we were fitting in his walk before dinner and a movie.

At the corner we turned into a livelier street lined with coffee shops and little businesses, including a bakery, and with a fair amount of traffic. People were parking and driving away, going in and out of the stores, picking up takeout, buying lottery tickets, generally getting their errands done before early closing time.

Raven dragged along behind Charlie. Dogs being walked usually seem to take some interest in their surroundings, and to be enjoying themselves. Not this Labradoodle. His head and tail stayed low and he kept his eyes on the ground. Charlie's encouraging remarks had no effect; he was not having fun, he didn't want to be out on this or any other street. The only thing in the world he wanted was to go home. If Charlie hadn't been a pretty assertive sort of person, I doubt she could have gotten him out the door at all. Even to me his body language was eloquent: Woe, woe is me, any second now we are going to run into a Man! "We'll go somewhere quieter in a couple of minutes, sweetie," Charlie promised him when we stopped outside the bakery, and to me, "I'll be as quick as I can."

But before she could pass the leash to me, a young woman came out of the bakery with two little girls in tow, one in a stroller, the other running loose, each holding a cookie. "Goggy!" shrieked the toddler, and the older girl shouted, "Look, Mommy, a doggy! What kind of doggy is it? Look how curly it is!" And to Charlie, "Can I pet your doggy?"

"He's a little shy," Charlie told her, trying to shield Raven from the kid's piercing excitement and her sister's repeated shrieks of "Goggy!" "I'm sorry," to the mother, "he's not too good with children." Raven pulled backward in horror, refusing even to look at the little girls. Being afraid of men wasn't his only problem—he hadn't been socialized at all, he didn't know how to behave with people generally. I quelled a flash of irritation with kids and mutt alike.

While Charlie was negotiating that situation, a guy in grimy coveralls and a Sherwin Williams cap had come out of the hardware store next door and started wrestling a group of large plastic trashcans into the bed of a pickup parked at the curb. The sudden racket was considerable, and Raven, already freaked, cowered and froze. Coveralls turned and called to someone inside the store, his profile revealing a bushy gray beard.

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